Remembrances of the Navy and my younger adventures, plus some emails from another blogger (http://watchingtheparade.blogstream.com/), have brought back images from my little bit of Naval aviation experience. See my previous Navy blog entries on 5 and 11 April, 2007.

My first flight experience was in a Yellow Peril, an N3N (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N3N) with floats. I sat in the second seat and communicated with the pilot through a rubber tube that ran to the front seat. We flew alongside the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (http://www.roadstothefuture.com/Chesapeake_Bay_Bridge.html) and the cars on the bridge were faster than we were. The pilot flew around for a few minutes, blew on the communications tube – it whistled when you blew on it – and told me to take the stick! It was the experience of a lifetime. The plane pretty much flew itself. What a thrill. I would love to have one of them now.

The next adventure was a flight from a carrier. It was in an F3D Skynight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F3D_Skyknight). A couple of things I remember about that. The Skynight's ejection system was a hatch that sat between the pilot and passenger – the Skynight was a side-by-side two seater. To eject, you lift the hatch and dropped down through it. Sort of scary. The carrier's catapult does a great job of acceleration, slams your head back against the seat. But it surely seemed inadequate. The plane dropped toward the water like a rock And then, at the last minute, the plane picked up speed and began to climb away from the speeding carrier on its tail. From any decent altitude, an aircraft carrier looks like a tiny little rectangle, just a little dot on the surface of an enormous ocean. There are destroyers on plane guard in front of and astern of the carrier – just in case. Reassuring. And then, the landing. This tiny little rectangle starts getting big – fast. Right in front of us was the carrier's stern with two gun tubs and a tiny little door that I thought the pilot was going to try to squeeze the plane through at a couple of hundred miles an hour. I had seen some of the damage control movies and the documentaries such as Victory at Sea and knew what happens when carrier landings go wrong. And the carrier is moving. Not just going forward, it moves up and down and left and right. On your next flight, imagine landing a plane on an airfield that is moving, seemingly trying to keep you from setting down through evasive maneuvers. It happens so fast. Then a wham and slam against the seat belts and you are back on solid steel. There is no thrill ride anything like carrier operations. I remember a quote from someone that carrier flight operations are four hours of absolute boredom and thirty seconds of stark terror.

Then, a few years later, after high-lining from the Cony to the the carrier (see my 5 April entry), I got an S2F ride back home for our Dan's birth. An S2F is a lot different from an F3D. It had two propellors instead of jets. S2F are often seen today as AWAC planes. Also cargo versions, like the one I was on. There was, back then, a version meant to carry nuclear depth bombs. A job done now by drone helicopters and missiles. Anyway, an S2F is not a particularly big aircraft in comparison to a modern jetliner, unless it tries to take off from a 1950's carrier. It took up almost the whole flight deck. And it moves slow. Once again, despite the best efforts of the catapult and the straining engines, the plane just barely makes it. Can you imagine a plane diving into the ocean right in front of a carrier steaming at full speed? I did. Of course, it made it.

More aviation stories to be told another day.

On this date in 1947, Jackie Robinson played his first major league game. The Dodgers were the favorite baseball team of my youth. Robinson, Reese, Campanella. And Jackie was my most favorite player. I have not paid much attention to baseball since they left Brooklyn.

The small college town were I grew up had only one black family. One of their children was in our high school. I remember no discord or problems about it. The fuss about Jackie Robinson's race was difficult to understand back then. As far as we were concerned, he was a great baseball player and a nice guy.

The fuss is still difficult to understand. Our neighborhood now has had African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, chefs, nurses, farmers, chicken chasers, exterminators. They have been good friends and neighbors.

Sharpton, Jackson, Imus – they are all prejudiced. Making as much money and mileage out of all of this as possible. And, of course, those doing the same include the news programs which keep the fuss going as long as they can. At the expense of the Rutgers basketball team. Are they giving us the news or just what we want to hear? Let's not forget that TV news programs, and Imus and Sharpton and Jackson, are a business. They are in this for only one reason – to make money. See my 7 April, 2007, and 22 March, 2007 entries.

Jackie Robinson was a hero. And the Rutgers team are heroes.

Several points for this date:

First, it is the birthdate of one of my favorite Virginians, Thomas Jefferson. Born 13 April, 1743. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson)

Second, let's keep Imus and dump Sharpton, Jackson, and all the news programs that are taking advantage of the Rutgers women's basketball team. Prostitutes, all of them. There are a lot of villians and one hero, the Rutgers women.

And, third, it is Friday, the 13th. Do you believe? Of course, luck exists. Largely, it is an excuse for why things go wrong. Another word for the vagaries of statistics. The key word is believe and what it means.

Some years ago, some of my students asked if I believed in extra-terrestrials. I said I did but that was the wrong way to ask. If one of them told me that little green men were going to land on the soccer field, which was right outside my front door, at 2 in the morning, would I be there? And my response was that I don't believe that strongly.

Do I believe in women's right to abortion? It is too easy to just say yes or no. Would I pick up a sign and parade in front of an abortion clinic? No. The acid test would be if one of my daughters told me she was pregnant and did not want the baby (I am confident this would not actually happen). I would tell her that we do not throw away one of our own. Then she says she can not raise the child. Now, the rubber hits the road. Do I, in my 70's, take in a newborn? He or she would go to college when I am 90! The cost in money and effort! And, of course, the answer is yes. That would be a true “belief”.

And Friday the thirteenth? Do I believe? OK. Am I changing my habits today? It might be a good excuse for some stupid act. Another good excuse is that the little green men are controlling my brain since I am not wearing my special hat which insulates against counter-oscillating subultracosmic radiation. But I am not going out of my way for either the little green men or Friday the thirteenth.

In my 5 April entry, I mentioned the USS Cony in the North Atlantic. The Cony was a DDE, a Fletcher Class WWII destroyer that had been refitted for ASW work. See Roger Reiman's great website, www.usscony.com. In WWII. Cony had five five inch single gun turrets. To make her into a 1950's DDE, she got a new sonar and fire control system, the #2 turret was replaced by a weapon able (a gadget that projected a large explosive charge that would go off when it got near a submarine), and #3 and #4 turrets were replaced by antiaircraft 3 inch guns and director. The topside torpedo projector was replaced by a guided torpedo system enclosed in the deck housing. The hedgehogs were still there but the depth charge racks were removed.

The main reason for the weapon able was that depth charges dropped off the stern, combined with the turbulence caused by the ship's screws, would create an area where a submarine could not be detected. Projecting a large charge out ahead from the weapon able and a ring of small charges for the hedgehog meant that there were no explosions unless the charge hit or came close to the sub. And the ship could turn so that the target was kept out of the screw noise.

An ASW exercise for DesRon 28 usually meant using one of our diesel subs as a target. It would try to penetrate the area. We would try to either “attack” it using cement filled dummy projectiles or hold it down until it ran out of air and had to surface. There was a line of sonar stations along the Atlantic coast that would detect that a sub was out there somewhere. Usually the aircraft would pick it up first with sonobouys they could drop into the water. Then the four destroyers would converge on the spot. Two would circle the target in an inner attack circle and two in a larger circle to watch for it to escape. The two in the inner circle would alternate swooping in to attack. The dummy projectiles and torpedoes had a small charge inside them so if the destroyer's got a “hit”, the sub could hear that go off. Someone said that the four destroyers plus the aircraft from the carrier had about a 50-50 chance of success. If we won, the sub would hear the charge in the dummy go off. One time, a sub had a hedgehog stuck in its tower.

Russian submarines did appear every so often. They would try to get past us and we would try to hold them down until their air was gone.

Despite Krushev's shoe banging, it was pretty much a game with the Russian boats. One of them was held down and had to come up for air. There was an exchange of greetings and it went on its merry way.

Nuclear boats meant a whole new plan, however. They could go past us like we were standing still. They were very noisy back then but it made little difference. The Cony quickly became obsolete, decommisioned in 1969, sunk in a gator gunnery exercise in 1970.

Today is one of my favorite memorials. On this date in 1865, in Appomattox, Virginia, the treaty between Lee and Grant that ended the Civil War was signed. Thanks to the Brittania alert on my Yahoo home page for the reminder.

The main reason it is one of my favorites is that it pretty much ended the whole thing. Unlike so many civil wars and uprisings – Ireland, Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq – that continued for generations, centuries. (See my 22 January, 2007 entry) True, there was lots of hard feelings and difficulties after Appomattox, but things could have gone a lot worse than they did.

The first hero of that event was President Lincoln.”With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” The South was not to be plundered and the war was over.

The second hero was General Grant. I am not a real student of all of this, but I like Bruce Catton's description of him. In his dirty corporal's blouse, as much a shining knight as any. He told Lee to send his men back to their homes and farms with a “parole” not to fight again. Grant fought the politicians to keep Lee and other generals from punishment. The war was over.

The next is Marse Robert, General Lee. Lee did not leave the Union Army to fight for the South, he came to Virginia because it had been invaded. Another name for the Civil War is the War of Northern Aggression. The South wanted to live peacefully by itself but the North invaded it. (See my 17 January, 2007 entry) The Constitution does not say anything about states not having the right to secede. Not that it was right to have slaves nor right to break up the United States nor that the Articles of Confederation were better (another name for the Civil War is the War for States Rights). And the outcome of the war was generally for the good of us all. But a common view of Virginians at that time was to fight for their state and their homes. When some of Lee's officers wanted to just drift off into the hills after Appomattox and continue the battle as guerilla fighters, Lee told them “Our cause is lost.”. The purpose was not to fight the Yankees but to preserve the rights of the states. And the war was over.

After Appomattox, General Sherman still faced General Johnston in North Carolina. They are the next heroes. Johnston disbanded his army with the same instructions as did Lee. No guerilla warfare, go home. Sherman paroled them, letting them take their guns and mules. He even gave the Southern states permission to keep their governments and their militias. And the war was over.

And, 142 years after Appomattox, the war is over.